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20 Responses to “Food Crisis”

S.P.said

Are families around the country — and around the globe — eating California produce grown with toxic water from oil drilling? If they consume Halos Mandarins, POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, Wonderful pistachios, Sunview Raisins, Bee Sweet citrus or Sutter Home wine, they may well be. Those companies grow some of their products in four water districts in California’s Central Valley that buy wastewater from Chevron and other oil companies’ drill sites. Now, Food & Water Watch is announcing a campaign to ban the practice, which threatens our food, farm workers and the environment, with a new documentary by noted filmmaker Jon Bowermaster and a campaign videocapturing shocked reactions from people who previewed the video last week in front of Whole Foods’ headquarters in Austin, Texas.

The produce industry’s dirty secret: toxic oil wastewater is being used to grow our food.

Why is Toxic Oil Wastewater Being Used To Grow Our Food?

Oil companies in California are selling wastewater from their drilling operations to several local irrigation districts, which in turn mix it with the water they sell to growers to irrigate their crops.

This sounds complicated, but what it means is that the toxic wastewater, which could include up to 173 (!) different chemicals, ends up in the water used to irrigate popular crops that are shipped across the country. A lot of the fruits, veggies and wines irrigated in this area are going to look familiar — like Halos Mandarin oranges, a popular snack marketed as being “pure goodness.”

“People are outraged, especially parents, when they find out the products they’re buying, sometimes organic, are actually being raised with oil and gas wastewater.” –Wenonah Hauter

If We Don’t Ban It, It Could Spread:

Currently, four water districts in the Central Valley use this toxic water. But with such a neat way for the oil and gas industry to dispose of their noxious wastewater (not to mention looming water shortages) it isn’t hard to imagine this becoming industry standard. It’s not clear whether the practice may already be going on in other states.

Worse Than Pink Slime, But Marketed to Moms

Our California director Adam Scow points out that this practice is even more deceptive than pink slime. “So-called healthy brands grown in these districts are using toxic waste to grow crops and then labeling them as pure goodness.”

A lot of these fruits and veggies are grown with toxic wastewater are the same ones we feed our children. In the video below, you can see the shocked reactions of shoppers as they watch the mini-documentary. The consensus? We just need to ban it.https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/JustBanIt

Wheat, rice and maize prices have fallen sharply from their 2008 highs, when protests broke out across the developing world over unaffordable staple foods and countries imposed export bans to ensure their people had enough to eat.

Akinwumi Adesina of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, an aid group headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said commodity markets dampened by recession were serving to mask “the next storm.”

“We have not yet tamed the forces of speculation, climate change will yet trample our farm fields, crop diversity remains under increasing threat,” he said in a speech. “Global grain reserves may be replenished for the time being, but global food security remains a goal, not a reality.”

One of the biggest problems, according to the agricultural economist from Nigeria, is the persistently paltry harvests from Africa’s farms, most of which are tended to be “without access to basic farm inputs, finance or markets.”

“While yields across the globe, especially in Asia and Latin America, have steadily increased, the yields of Africa have remained constant — sitting at about one-quarter of the global average,” Adesina said.

MORE FINANCING NEEDED

He called for international donor agencies and the banks and insurance providers active in the agricultural arena to step up their activity in Africa, and work to help farmers access small loans that meet their productive needs.

“Lack of access to finance is a major constraint to unlocking the potential of agriculture in Africa,” he said.

The diversity of crops now being produced across the continent must also be preserved.

Plant diseases such as the blight that ruined Ireland’s potato crop and caused famine are among the biggest risks to the global food supply, especially if major staples such as wheat or rice should be affected.

Adesina said the variety of foods being produced in Africa, often on the same farm — with maize, groundnuts, rice, cowpea and sweet potato all grown in a cycle — served as an important insurance that must be maintained however possible.

But he allowed that hefty costs may be involved in boosting the productivity and output of small-holder farms across the vast continent, which is highly vulnerable to extreme weather and the effects of climate change.

Citing figures from the International Food Policy Research Institute, the expert said that Africa will need $32 billion to $39 billion annually to achieve an agricultural transformation — not including infrastructure costs.